Giovinazzi is in his third full season with Alfa Romeo and scored the Swiss team’s first point in 2021 with a 10th place in Monaco.
After a difficult debut season with the team in 2019, Giovinazzi was able to catch up with Raikkonen when the pair ended 2020 with four points each, while Giovinazzi narrowly left the 2007 world champion behind with nine to eight.
The Italian promised to continue learning from his much more experienced teammate in 2021, but ahead of the season, team boss Vasseur expressed hope that the 27-year-old would take on more responsibility.
In an exclusive interview with the Italian edition of Motorsport.com, Vasseur said he believed Giovinazzi would now be ready to be team leader alongside a less experienced teammate should the 41-year-old Raikkonen retire after this season.
“I think so because the feedback from Antonio is pretty solid,” said Vasseur.
“Probably one of the problems he has had in the past has been that he focused too much on Kimi as a reference and he has to focus on himself.
“I think the big change he’s had in the last 12 months was that when he made that kind of move to say, ‘OK, now we’re focusing on me, I’m doing the job, me can do the job and “if I use 100% of my capacity I’ll do a decent job.” And he changed that mindset.
“It’s not easy, because the first reference is often your teammate, who now takes up his own position in the team. And that is also important for us. “
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Vasseur believes Giovinazzi took another step in early 2021 after overtaking Raikkonen four to one in the first five Grand Prix of the season.
“He clearly made a step between the two seasons, but it was like that in the second half of 2020,” he said.
“If you take a look he’s done a decent quality except Imola where he had the problem [being overtaken by Nikita Mazepin at the end of the out lap].
“But in the other qualifications he led the team. And it is important for us to have the stability, as we said earlier that I think Antonio is growing up and improving.
“He was a bit … I don’t know if bad luck is the right word, but we had too many problems during the race to score points, but at least the pace was there.
“And the most important thing is that we have 23 races and if the pace is right we will score points. Antonio is doing a good job.”
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